Mr Gates announced it at the opening of CES, very good news. I looking forward to seeing how it looks

http://news.com.com/Gates%20shows%20off%20Vista%20in%20CES%20keynote/2100-1041_3-6018529.aspx?part=rss

Update:

Now they might release blu-ray drives as well, i guess that makes it a win win situation?

Its funny how Melinda got voted as one of the person of the year.
Wife of bill gates,get some billions and donated,wow.
She is a amazing person.
It must be really hard spending some of your husbands money!!!
And then look like a women who is the reason the 3rd world is better,when even Bill donate too,i mean her money come from Bill,and Bill was the donater untill she started to give...after getting money from Bill...hahah so lame well nvm,back to topic.

" Along with Vista, Gates is also made his case for HD DVD--one of two competing formats for next-generation DVDs. Gates said Microsoft would offer an external HD DVD drive that can connect to the recently released Xbox 360 game console.

By offering the drive as an Xbox add-on, Microsoft is hoping to win over consumers with a cheaper option than buying an all-new device to play next-generation Blu-ray or HD DVD discs."

Sounds good i guess,just wonder what it will cost...

I' m not getting a 360 until it can play all of my VHS tapes!

Videogame systems are for watching movies. Nothing else.

ORIGINAL: Joe Redifer

I' m not getting a 360 until it can play all of my VHS tapes!

Videogame systems are for watching movies. Nothing else.

That' s why it' s kinda smart to have it as an add-on. I would' ve liked to have it built in, initially, but it' s a rather smart move. The 360' s on the market and it will have HD-DVD support, but the end consumer can decide whether this is a technology that they need, and may choose to just use the 360 for games and not have to pay the premium.

The question is, will Sony follow suit, seeing as how the initial Blue-ray players will cost in excess of $1000?! Based on this, do you guys think the PS3 will be over $1000?

If the Bluray players will cost 1000$ dollars, the PS3 will also have to cost that amount of money, or else no one will buy the players, and they might as well not be made!

That' s why it' s kinda smart to have it as an add-on. I would' ve liked to have it built in, initially, but it' s a rather smart move. The 360' s on the market and it will have HD-DVD support, but the end consumer can decide whether this is a technology that they need, and may choose to just use the 360 for games and not have to pay the premium.

The question is, will Sony follow suit, seeing as how the initial Blue-ray players will cost in excess of $1000?! Based on this, do you guys think the PS3 will be over $1000?

Only the best BR players will cost that much and there is a larger profit margin you have to include, the BR capablity in the ps3 is just that a capability from parts that would be in the ps3 anyways, The ps3 doesn' t have an actual BR player included (its built in). Also, Toshiba is one of Sonys partners for constructing the ps3 so you can bet they are getting a good deal to put BR in the ps3. So no the ps3 won' t cost 1000$, it won' t even cost half that much in USD.

The Blu-Ray player in the PS3 will likely be very half-assed, just like the PS2 DVD player.

we can only speculate how much it will cost, my guess is it wont cost 399$ more like 499$

If the Bluray players will cost 1000$ dollars, the PS3 will also have to cost that amount of money, or else no one will buy the players, and they might as well not be made!

But if that were true then you wouldn' t have different priced items such as DVD Players, VCRs, and other electronics on store shelves with cheaper and more expensive alternatives available as people would just buy the cheapest ones and ignore the high priced products.

You' re always going to have a good portion of consumers who want what they see as " The Best" . You can believe that those $1000 players WILL be sold. They won' t fly off of store shelves as quickly as a PS2 and PS3, but they' ll definitely find a market.

Its all about mass production,if you order 50 million ps3 with blu-ray you wont get the same price as ordering 1-10,no you get it much cheaper.
And thus the price go down.
The blu-ray it self will probably go on 150-200 dollar.

If it' s just for playing HD-DVD' s thats fine, I' ll get one when I' m actually bothered. If they start making HD-DVD games, thats more interesting. I can see them doing a ' Sony' and releasing a 360 a few years down the line with HD-DVD player built in.

Not suprised about this news really. It was inevitable that Microsoft would put HD-DVD capabilities into the X360 sooner or later. They can' t afford to do otherwise. I suppose making it an optional add on is a smarter move, making the whole system cost less.

I never really use my DVD player on my Xbox or PS2. Compared to an off the shelf current DVD player, their capabilities are dismal.

If they do end up making games on the HD-DVD' s they will have to include the game on a standard DVD. or somehow make a DVD portion on the HD-DVD that is readable to the xbox, i dont know if thats possible!

btw about bill gates speech,its kind of funny...
they say 50% has online to their xbox360,and 9/10 gonna buy or have hdtv.
Ofc all people who bought the overpriced 360 and pre-ordered are the hardcores.
I would had too,if i did not have any money at the time...
It will be much lower when they go over 1 million sold xbox360

They are well over 1 million sold now, i think, but anyway i think it will go down, but the xbox live subscribers well not go much lower as they are counting the silver memberships as well!

But why did microsoft wait till now to annonce it? it surely was in devolpment when the 360 was launched. its Becuase microsoft dont want you to add up how much you are actually spending just to get a fullly equiped 360, and now with this hd-dvd player coming, which i can imagine being around 100, is going to stack up those costs futher. When will it stop?

its a smart idea to wait till 360 has a built in hd-dvd player. Everybody knew this was coming though.

If they do end up making games on the HD-DVD' s they will have to include the game on a standard DVD. or somehow make a DVD portion on the HD-DVD that is readable to the xbox, i dont know if thats possible!

Can the laser in standard DVD players read HD-DVD? If Not, then that might present a problem with hybrid DVD & HD-DVD game discs..

With that said, I think it' s too late for Microsoft to even entertain the thought of HD-DVD games for the 360 simply because they' d wind up splitting up the 360 market and pissing off at least half their fans.

Nevermind the confusion that could set in at retail if there' s DVD and HD-DVD copies of games on store shelves and some poor shmucks grab the HD-DVD copies without having a way to play them back.

And HD-DVD Xbox 360 would also annoy the hell out of the early adopters who plunked down all that change for the current Xbox 360..

I think it' s not that cool even for movies - many reviews state that X360 has a lame DVD movie playback - the image is not that ...great :) - and I read that it' s even worse for HDTV content.
Why would you get some HD DVD drive for system that fails to deliver what HD DVD is all about?

Yeah it' s DVD playback isn' t perfect, but neither was the PS2' s.

External components for consoles have always been failures. I wouldn' t want an ectra drive sitting next to my 360 just so i can play DVD' s formatted for HD. I don' t think we have to worry for a while though, since film companies will definately continue to support normal DVD for ages yet!

According to www.gametrailers.com the new HD-drive for the Xbox360 might only be used for movies.
Full article here:
http://www.gametrailers.com/viewnews.php?id=2804

But that' s just what they believe. Nothing is certain yet...?